As a 70s week here at FTTW draws to a close, let's take a quick look at what we've seen:

• We reminisced about some really shitty songs
• We had a fondue party
• We looked at some kickass and not-so-kickass commercials
• We did horror movies, 70s style

I'm gonna get started by talking about shit that happened before he was born:

That's right folks. I'm the baby of the bunch of FTTW editors. I was born in 1981, but that doesn't mean that I don't love my 70s culture. My dad enjoyed his late teens and early 20s in the 70s, so that was his heyday, and he had no problem sharing that culture with me. I have my favorites of a lot of 70s things, so here's a peek into my mind.

TV Show

Fawlty Towers. I didn't discover this show till the mid-90s, when Comedy Central started airing them. What a great show. I was your typical computer geek high school student in that I was a huge Monty Python fan, so when John Cleese's own series came on, I was on that like stink on shit. It was great. It reminded me a lot of Wings, which of course came on much later, but I was already familiar with it.
John Cleese was fantastic. I had a huge crush on Connie Booth. The little gay Mexican man? Hilarious.

See folks? I'm not all death and metal and zombies. I can laugh. I'M HUMAN TOO.

Album

A lot of really great albums came out in the 70s, but in my opinion, it peaked in 1972, when Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick. I first got introduced to Jethro Tull in 1994, when I was in 7th grade. My county concert band played an arrangement of "Aqualung" and when I told my dad about it, his eyes lit up. He played me the whole album, and I loved every second of it.

I started learning more about his music and when I found Thick as a Brick, I fell in love with it. I loved the concept of a single track on the album. It was like a one-act rock opera. It was fantastic. I have a long attention span for songs. Bands like Opeth really get my motor running because they don't conform to the radio-friendly 3 minute ditty ... they take the time to develop their themes and fully explore what they want to express.

In 2002, Dream Theater released Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. The second disc of the album is the title track. It's tracked into 8 parts, but it's one actual song, according to the band. It's very similar to TaaB, and if you liked that, I highly recommend you check it out.

Movie

Hands down, my favorite movie released 1970 - 79 was Blazing Saddles. I honestly can't think of a more quotable comedy ever released. More than that, it was really bold. They said some of the funniest shit I have ever heard in my life, but if they tried that today? Someone would be arrested. Hell, if they tried that in 1974 without Richard Pryor writing, someone would be arrested. My dad first showed me this movie in about 1989, and before you get all indignant about the smut my father was showing me at such a young age, all I remembered was the fart scene around the fire, and "Candygram for Mongo!" I was 8, what the fuck do you want from me?

They said Baby Huey was hung, and they was right!

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